


Fox's Feelings

by BlackPencilKitten



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 03:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackPencilKitten/pseuds/BlackPencilKitten
Summary: Feelings are a blessing, but also a curse. Shut the bad ones away, never let them out. The calm and collected are the ones who are liked, the obedient are the ones who are beloved.At least, that's what Madarame had taught him. With him out of his life, he doesn't know what to do with them.They bottle up inside, until his anger and confusion create its own bullet to shatter the glass.





	Fox's Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> 'BPK where's the fluffy stuff' I don't know. I created Gays on Ice and then Therapissed slapped me and said 'more angst'  
> But also I like thinking about repressed emotions and my favorite characters.

He stood up against a corrupted man and ruined his own future.

He threw it away because a group of people he just met showed him the truth.

He threw everything away, his home, the one person he considered  _family,_ he tossed it all away because of stupid  _plagiarism._ Does it really matter if no one else knows? Originality is nonexistent, nothing is ever 100% original, so why did he care about a few copies? Digital artists sell printouts of their art, copies of it, so why did he care about copies of a painting? Is there no difference?

Everything...confused him. When the others sat him down on the couch, he could barely remember what Skull had said, nevertheless what he himself said. However, he did remember the...emotion he felt. Disappointment. He knew it wasn't from anyone in the gang, they were relatively nice, if not for the occasional comment on his..eccentricness. So if it wasn't from them, it must've been-

From himself.

No, that couldn't be. Madarame had taught him about these emotions, to let the good ones in and keep the bad ones out. This one...felt bad. It wasn't just self-disappointment, it was...self hatred, fear and-disgust?

Yusuke shook his head as the gang left the palace, silent except for a remark or two on the paintings inside.

 

The morning after the events of the palace, he picked up the few things he actually owned from his 'room', being kicked out by his fath-by Madarame. He knew nothing of his real father, Madarame just...took him in. Kept him around, he was no family member. His sketchbook, pencils, paint set and brushes, plus the clothes that had been cleaned and dried were all in a neat pile on his-on his rental room's bed. After thanking Madarame for keeping him around so long, he left, using his phone to look up other places he could rent out. He had enough for a week's worth of rent, but he would surely make money with his art or by the palace. It's been ten years since he was taken in, surely he could take care of himself.

 

The following days felt like a blur, juggling new rumors at school and Madarame's palace, plus dealing with money. The week's worth of rent was spent only two days after he got his place, and while his friends-no, comrades said they had plenty of money to help him, he refused to take more than he needed. Food wasn't a big deal, it never had been, instant meals, water and beans were dirt cheap and all he needed to live on. Ryuji seemed to disagree with him, even asked if he wanted to go to the Beef Bowl one day, and he agreed. One day. Which wouldn't be today, or the next day, or the day after that. Just, one day, he was fine as is, he didn't need temptation or anything else that would distract him from his art.

 

He's created quite a few paintings, though he hesitated before showing his friends. Something...felt wrong about them. Like they were trying to stir up a feeling inside, something negative. That couldn't be it, he had painted them with utmost neutrality, there was no way they could possibly be painted from a silly  _feeling_. Even his friends commented that they could feel the 'anger coming from this piece' or that 'it seems like a sad painting'. There were no feelings in his paintings, he just...liked using singular color pallets. Red wasn't anger, fear wasn't purple, they're just  _colors_ , they mean  _nothing._

 

It surprises him when his friends ask how he's feeling, especially Ryuji. Why did he care, didn't he have Akira to hang out with?

"You've been acting paranoid lately, are you alright?" Ann would ask, having dragged him to one of her favorite restaurants. He explains it as 'artist anxiety', but something tells him that he's lying. Ignoring the feeling, he says he's fine, before taking a bite out of the ramen she got him, then one out of the dessert. These were...good.  _Don't get attached, you don't **need** all this._

"Yo, you've been snappin at us a lot. What's killin ya?" Ryuji said, confronting him at the train station after they completed a request in mementos. 'I haven't been feeling good' was his excuse, but that too felt like a lie. Everything he said about his feelings...felt like lies. Was he forgetting what was real and what was not, was he becoming deluded? No, not at all, he was telling the utmost truth, he saw only the truth with his own eyes....right?

"Hey, you've been looking down. Are you OK?" Akira slid him a cup of coffee and a bowl of curry, before grabbing his own and sitting beside him. 'Artist block', 'it's the weather', 'I'm fine'. All these _excuses_ made him feel guilty, and he didn't want to. Negative emotions are locked up so the good ones can prosper, so they can shine in their glory. There was nothing wrong with him, he was fine, he was making art, if he wasn't making art _then_ something was wrong, but the last time he didn't make art was during an actual artist block years ago- _actual_? His artist blocks were real though, why did he think that? He's a man of  _truth_ , he knows what's true or false, what exists and doesn't. Why did he doubt himself?

The next time he gets home, he exhausts some of his supplies from the sheer amount of paintings he makes. Single colored, wild, free,  _bad_. These looked good, but felt bad,  _he_ made it, it couldn't be  _bad._ Yusuke was a great artist, that's what his fa-that's what Madarame told-no, that's what he knew. Then why did these disgust him, make him angry, disappointed, afraid, all these emotions he thought-he knew he couldn't feel. What was the meaning of all this?

His friends got more and more worried as time went on, as Madarame admitted his crimes. He shut them out, he was  _ab-so-lutely effin fine._ THEY were the ones being irrational, not him, they were the ones being paranoid, confused, not-not him. Locking up his artwork in his room, he stopped showing what he made to his friends, maybe with time they would stop  _bugging_ him.

Wait, since when did his friends-his acquaintances bug him? He liked them, Ann was beautiful and always knew the best places to get food, Ryuji took him training sometimes, and they always had a good time, and Akira made good coffee and was kinda cute-pretty. Madarame said to describe people as 'pretty', not 'cute', so people 'wouldn't get the wrong idea', so 'no one would ask for a relationship'. No longer would Yusuke rely on people, he didn't want-he didn't need them. He was independent and perfectly fine, haha, he didn't need them. He doesn't need anyone.

He spends all his money on art supplies, because he's gone through his entire sketchbook in less than a week, gone through his paint in less than a day. Painting after painting, nonstop, taking few, if any breaks between his masterpieces-no, between his _disgusting shit._ These EMOTIONS came from his paintings, no, they come from him and he put them in his paintings, which only reciprocate them. They need to LEAVE, why can't he make them leave, if he puts them on his paintings, why can't they STAY there and never leave? He grips his pencil so hard it snaps in two, and he growls before leaving his apartment. Fresh air, he needed fresh air, that was all.

The changes in Yusuke don't bypass his friends, and one day Ryuji decided to check on him. The snapping, the paranoia, the depressive periods, they worried him, Ann, and Akira, and  _someone_ had to do something about it. At least make sure Yusuke was OK, because he was definitely not the normal poetic and calm beauty that he was.

Testing the doorknob and finding it unlocked, Ryuji entered Yusuke's room, being knocked speechless at the sight.

Ripped pieces of paper littered the ground, pieces of drawings on their surfaces. The broken remains of pencils sat with them, along with the bristles of what used to be paintbrushes. His sketchbook was in his hands, cover ripped with crumpled up paper underneath it. He turned toward Ryuji, breathing unevenly.

"Sakamoto, how...lovely to see you!" Letting out a nervous laugh, he tossed his sketchbook aside, clasping his hands together and fiddling with them. "What brings you to my...room?"

"The hell happened in here-what happened to you? Your hair-when was the last time you bathed? And you look even skinnier than before, and the last time I saw you was WEEKS ago!" He exclaimed, gesturing to Yusuke's body.

"I've been eating, if that's what you're asking, hehe. My hair-how observant of you to notice my hair I, uh-was trying a new style. 'Wild and Free', you know, like yours." Yusuke grabbed one of the remaining unbroken pencils he had, twiddling it between his fingers, eyes darting around the room.

"Don't try and distract me with a compliment, LOOK AT YOURSELF. I apologize for describing you this way, because I know it hurts your feelings, but you. look. CRAZY!"

"...Hehehe." As if on cue, Yusuke started laughing, starting at a low chuckle before it turned into one of those full-blown villain laughs.

"CRAZY? You march into my room, without any prior notice, and have the  _audacity_ to call me CRAZY? Listen-no, look here you little-" Interrupting himself, Yusuke went to a small storage closet he had in his room, pulling out the paintings his friends had judged before, plus what looked like hand-painted copies of them.

"SEE THESE? THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME, GREEN SPLATTERS, RED FLARES, BLUE SWIRLS, PURPLE SPIKES, I'VE BEEN PAINTING FOR WEEKS AND ALL I CAN CREATE IS THE SAME STUPID PAINTINGS. THE SAME DAMN THINGS, OVER AND OVER, I'M LIKE A BROKEN RECORD.  _LOOK AT THEM_ -" He practically shoved one in Ryuji's face, who took a step back to try and see it in the darkness of Yusuke's room. While his vision sucked, from memory he could tell it was the blue one.

"WHAT DID YOU GUYS SAY ABOUT THEM? THAT YOU COULD 'PRACTICALLY FEEL THE RAGE COMING OFF' THEM, THAT 'YOU SUDDENLY FELT DEJECTED', THAT 'YOU FELT AN IMMENSE FEELING OF DISGUST'? THAT'S WHAT YOU GUYS SAID, AND I THINK IT'S TRUE. RED'S ANGER, PURPLE'S FEAR, GREEN DISGUST AND BLUE SADNESS.  _AND I FUCKING HATE IT_. I DON'T WANT THESE 'FEELINGS', I CAN'T HAVE THEM, THEY'RE BAD, AND YOU KEEP BAD THINGS OUT OF YOUR LIFE SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON THE GOOD. BUT THEY WON'T  _FUCKING_ LEAVE!" Yusuke tosses his paintings to the side, not caring if they broke or not and grabbing Ryuji by the shoulders. He doesn't speak, catching his breath.

"Yusu, I don't understand. Who told you that you can't have feelings-"

"MY FATHER OF COURSE! MADARAME SAID THAT BY GETTING RID OF THESE AWFUL EMOTIONS THAT I WOULD BE A STAR, THAT I COULD GROW UP AND BE JUST LIKE HIM! I DON'T WANT TO BE HIM, I DON'T WANT TO STEAL THE IDEAS OF MY FRIENDS, BUT I CAN'T JUST FORGET WHAT HE TAUGHT ME! I CAN'T JUST  _FORGET MY FAMILY'S TEACHINGS!"_

He lets go of Ryuji, turning away and walking a few feet away, hands on his head.

"I HATE THESE FEELINGS, I HATE THEM, I HATE MADARAME BUT I DON'T, I HATE THAT I HATE MY FAMILY AND THESE 'EMOTIONS' THAT I'VE SEEN YOU GUYS FEEL, THAT MUST BE _NORMAL_ , BUT I DON'T- _I CAN'T_   _UNDERSTAND!_ "

He falls to his knees, holding the sides of his arms. Sobs catch in his throat along with screams, cries of terror, and the sickening feeling of  _vile_. Everything confused him, overwhelmed him, it was just  _too much._

Ryuji was shocked to silence, standing there frozen as he slowly processed everything that Yusuke had said. He gazed around the room, at the mess on the floor, the paintings tossed to the side, the sketchbook bent and crumpled up, and at Yusuke, who seemed so small in this state. Walking towards him, he sat beside him, wordless. Yusuke hiccuped once, wiping away the stream of tears that had started falling.

"I don't understand Ryuji."

"...I don't either." Yusuke turned his head to look at him, eyes wide, confused, desperate even.

"W-What?"

"I don't understand either. I'm not one of those expensive, professional therapists, I'm not Akira, I don't know what to say to make you feel better, because I don't know how or what could. You've just told me a lot of the shit you're going through, and I haven't been through it, so there's nothing I can say except...I'm sorry that I can't help." Ryuji stared at the ground in front of him, at the bristles of a broken paintbrush, too ashamed to look at the friend that needed him, that he couldn't help.

A giggle broke the silence, small and quiet, but a giggle nonetheless, and it came from Yusuke. He kept wiping at his eyes before looking at Ryuji, who built up the courage to look at him back.

"Th-That's one similarity between us, isn't it? We don't understand, w-we're just high school students. Thrown into a c-completely new world, new problems to solve o-on top of school, new people to worry a-about. Of course we can't understand, e-everything's happening so fast, it's....it's normal. I-I think it's normal. We don't know everything, it's i-impossible. Besides, we'd go insane from a-all that knowledge, that's a fact. And...and it's o-okay." He explained, before grabbing one of Ryuji's arms, unsure what to do with it. Ryuji smiled before completing the hug, running a hand over Yusuke's messy hair.

"Actually, y-you did help Ryuji. You listened to me, t-to my problems. without judging. E-Everytime I talked to Madarame, I felt like I-I'd be judged harshly. I didn't feel like that, a-at least to that extent. It was l-like I  _knew_ you'd listen, and you did. So, th-thank you." Yusuke finished, letting out a raspy laugh dotted with a hiccup.

"I...you're welcome." Ryuji said, patting his back a few times to try and make up for his own awkwardness.

Soon Yusuke pulled away, wiping a few more tears from his eyes while standing up, pulling Ryuji up with him.

"So...about your offer on the Beef Bowl. Do you...wanna go?"

"Today?"

"I-If you don't mind, I'm extremely hungry, now that I-I think about it." Yusuke chuckled as his stomach gave a loud growl in response to the food talk.

"Sure! Should we tell the others about all...this?" Ryuji gestured to the entire room, the paintings, and Yusuke, face contorted in mixed confusion and fear that he was offending Yusuke.

"I...I'd like to. They should know too."

"Alright then, it's settled. Beef Bowl here we come!" Ryuji explained, taking Yusuke's hand and leaving his room with him, the two soon leaving the apartments, ignoring the looks thrown at them, and heading for the Beef Bowl.


End file.
